The Melbourne Writers Festival x The University of Melbourne
As a major sponsor for the Melbourne Writers Festival 2023, The University of Melbourne had an opportunity to promote their inaugural ‘Poet in Residence’ program. As an on-screen pre-roll advertisement to live keynotes and events at the Writers Festival, the film celebrated The University’s commitment to the art of literature and poetry, maintaining focus on the residency programme itself, and gently reinforcing the University as an authority for literary education.
Client
The Faculty of Arts Marketing & Communications Team,
The University of Melbourne
Style
Brand Film | Education | Event Sponsorship
The Faculty of Arts Marketing & Communications Team,
The University of Melbourne
Style
Brand Film | Education | Event Sponsorship
The Brief
An alignment with the Melbourne Writers Festival 2023 through their Major Sponsorship was a critical opportunity for the University to reach academic and literary audiences. For their ad placement across the festival, our brief from the University was to develop commercial-level video content, with their inaugural ‘Poet in Residence’, Maxine Beneba Clarke, as the hero of the narrative. Showcasing Melbourne University’s alignment to the art of poetry was a key positioning tactic for the festival – and the film needed to be equal parts captivating and true to the artist's performance of the work.
Finding the Interesting
We worked with Maxine Beneba Clarke, the University’s Poet in Residence to create a single-take production of poetry in performance. Choosing to film in a single-take, with the poetry and poet at the heart of the narrative, set the creative choices we then made in lighting, performance direction, sound-mixing, image grade and brand overlay.
Subtle visual cues for location highlight Melbourne University’s involvement were used, with the film location taking place in the recognisable and historic Old Quad Building at the Parkville campus.
Creative Output
Over the course of the Writers Festival, the film had a total viewing of almost 10,000. As a major brand asset to support the festival and raise awareness for the University’s support of the literary culture, the single-take format proved successful in captivating audiences prior to each major event; positioning the University as a literary authority amongst the noise of other festival sponsorship partners.